I already talked here and here about the issue of gay marriage, but I felt the need to add a few words on the historic occasion of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn gay marriage bans.
My initial thought was: I can't believe it, that's awesome. I had not thought they would, since so many on the Supreme Court are conservative, though yesterday's ACA decision certainly gave me a bit of hope.
I later thought, however, that it's only a small piece of the puzzle. Gay marriage and the ACA are tiny pieces of a larger social justice agenda, but they're pieces that had an incredibly large voice. They were things that, even though the Republicans fought against them mercilessly, seemed like they were destined to pass, that the movement in America is toward those avenues of equality, and any struggle against them was just a token gesture.
The real problem behind all of it is a more nebulous quagmire of wealthism, a need to pit the middle class against the lower class so that neither can rise up against the upper class.
and I'm a bit afraid... afraid that when these two issues are considered resolved by most people, they'll give up on politics, they'll leave politics in the hands of those who have effectively limited the right to free speech to the wealthiest corporations, who have denied the right to vote to millions, who have reworked voting districts so that their political party is the dominant one in Washington even when they represent the smaller number of citizens.
Those of us who still have the right to vote must stand up to these measures, must recognize that the victory at the Supreme Court today is just the first little skirmish in a much longer and war, and must train and arm and mobilize to fight that war, not with guns but with votes and words and capital.
Voting for Bernie Sanders in the general election would help, but it's not enough. We need constitutional amendments to fight gerrymandering and voter restriction and especially, first and foremost, Citizens United.
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